A criminal organization led by a family clan dedicated to providing logistics to drug traffickers has been dismantled
Agents of the Spanish National Police, in a joint operation with the Civil Guard and the Tax Agency’s Customs Surveillance, have dismantled a criminal organisation dedicated to providing logistics to drug traffickers. 15 people have been arrested from an organisation whose leaders financed, controlled and supplied petaqueo warehouses, high-speed boats, fuel and food to support drug trafficking. The criminal structure operated from Chiclana de la Frontera in that city, Cádiz and San Fernando.
The investigation began when agents learned of the existence of a criminal organization that could be engaged in supplying fuel, food and support during crew changes to high-speed semi-rigid vessels used for drug trafficking and immigration, thus facilitating drug shipments.
During the investigation it was found that the organisation was fully structured and hierarchical, led by a well-known family clan based in Chiclana. This organisation had a hierarchical hierarchy with a clear division of functions in which the leaders, both brothers, were in charge of control and financing to acquire petrol, vehicles, boats, logistics centres such as fuel storage, engines for high-speed boats, trusted contacts and security work in the transfer of petrol containers as well as in the purchase of provisions for the pilots of the “narco-boats”.
On the second level was the lieutenant and “right-hand man” of the leaders, who assumed the role of trusted person for contact tasks with other members of the organization who occupy lower levels in the structure.
Extensive history of drug trafficking crimes
The members of the organization have an extensive criminal record for crimes related to drug trafficking. It should be noted that the organization carried out in a concerted and coordinated manner all the actions necessary to facilitate the shipments, providing logistical support to other vessels that were already in the water to supply them with fuel, provisions, crew changes and even bartering gasoline for bales of hashish.
Likewise, police pressure forced the members of the organisation to alternate the locations for the supplies and to have new fuel stores located in different parts of the province with the intention of making surveillance and police action more difficult. These fuel stores have been stored in different buildings located both within the city centre and on the outskirts. Some of them have even been stored in rooms in houses next to children’s bedrooms where normal life is carried out, and also on the ground floor of buildings where numerous families live. All of this, with the danger that comes with transporting this type of flammable and incendiary products in vans, which generates a serious risk for people in the event of an explosion.
During the operation, seven house searches were carried out in the towns of Chiclana de la Frontera, Puerto de Santa María and Puerto Real, where a 4-metre inflatable boat with an engine, 3 deflated inflatable boats, 4 inflatable boat engines and 3 engine tails, 4 vehicles and 2 motorcycles were seized. Likewise, 21,580 euros in cash, 5 weapons, 1 military smoke grenade, 2 police rotaries, 2 machetes, 3 GPS devices, 27 telephones and 2 satellite phones, 7 kg of marijuana, 18 hashish pills and 2,475 litres of petrol in flasks were seized.